


Star Trek Into Darkness Opinion Time

by anita58straycat



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Movie Spoilers, Reviews, movie review
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 11:23:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anita58straycat/pseuds/anita58straycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MAJOR SPOILER FOR STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS!! </p><p>Also for TWOK and TSFS if you're new to Star Trek and haven't see the original movies. In the beginning I talk a bit about STXI, too.</p><p>This is a meta of sorts on the new movie with a look at its predecessor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Star Trek Into Darkness Opinion Time

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s my two cents on Star Trek Into Darkness. It’s gonna be spoiler-y so, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, come back later :) It’s not going to be a review in any case. It’s just me rambling my way through the movie in a god-awful English.
> 
> Crossposted [here](http://koryuoftheriverflow.tumblr.com/post/50921728568/star-trek-into-darkness-opinion-time) on my tumblr.

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Before we start I’d like to make a small digression regarding the 2009 ST, since STID comes as its sequel. I didn’t like it. Not because it wasn’t faithful to Star Trek. I obviously knew TOS for I had watched a couple of episodes when they did reruns on television, but only for shit and giggles: the unicorn-dog, Trelane, the tribbles and all that fancy stuff. And I was so stubborn: I wanted to learn English because I couldn’t even say  _hi, my name is Anita_  without tripping over the words, but there weren’t any subtitles, so I was like one of those kids who just watch the pictures in books because they can’t read. So, like, I didn’t really get the message, Gene’s vision. Yeah, I was stupid, you’re free to insult me. But anyway, now you see my point: I didn’t dislike it because it’s obviously NOT a star trek movie (I’ve said it, and I’ll say it again: I wasn’t a trekkie back in the days), but because I genuinely thought it was not a good movie, period.

There are more than a few things that didn’t work, for me. First of all, if you’re gonna build a movie based on a time paradox you make absolutely certain to not leave plot-holes. Secondly: Nero. It was not a great villain: it’s lame! It’s just…stupid. It’s a stupid character. I mean, he wasn’t smart, like, at all, but on the other hand he wasn’t even evil for the sake of being evil. He was neither, so…ehwg. Vulcan! You just can’t obliterate Vulcan from the face of the universe. And the sexism, don’t even get me started on that. We all know JJ is a sexist brat, and I cringe every time I think about it, so I’ll move on fast because this drives me mad and I don’t want to insult anybody. I’ll talk about it anyway in a while regarding the new movie. Last but not least, Kirk. He’s the main character, right? So I was supposed to relate to him and I wanted to, God knows I wanted to, but I couldn’t… because he’s a douchebag! I’m sorry, but he is. He’s insufferable! And when I started to educate myself on TOS this movie became even worse, because it’s everything Gene’s original project wasn’t. But, ok, enough of that. This is supposed to be on Into Darkness.

If I have to make a comparison between the 2 movies, I have to say… STID is way better than its predecessor. Right now, I am merely judging it as a sci-fi movie, not a star trek one. For an action flick, it was good. There’s no point in denying it. Good pacing, good interactions between the characters and a good mixture of humor and drama. I liked it!

BUT… I can’t just ignore that it’s called Star Trek, that it’s part of the star trek franchise and as such it has to fall into the path left by its predecessors. And it doesn’t really pass the test.

I’ll talk in more details about what I liked or didn’t like about the plot and the characters both on their own and in relation to their counterparts in TOS, but first I think it’s better if we get the elephant in the room out of the way. It’s already being there long enough: Khan.

In which universe is it acceptable to have a guy called Khan Noonien Singh being played by a white dude? Seriously? What’s wrong with you? The whole point of Khan was his  _perfection_ , right? The scientists who created him wanted to build the perfect man: super-strong and super-intelligent. Race had no meaning whatsoever. In 1967 Gene clearly stated that white men are in no way superior to other people; it was a loaded statement back then, when minorities were still fighting for their rights. And you can’t really argue that Ricardo Montalban was Mexican and therefore Caucasian, because he doesn’t look white (I mean, just look at him in Space Seed!). He’s also the founder of an organization that helped poc like him to find job in Hollywood, because at the time they couldn’t have roles that didn’t portray them as being somewhat inferior to white.

Some say that it wasn’t racist, on the contrary! Too often the bad guy is portrayed by poc and that’s considered, rightfully so, insulting. Yes, I agree, but “casually” when the villain has to be smart he’s always a white dude. Whitewashing is bad. Period. It doesn’t matter that Cumberbatch did a good job. Hell, I know he would have because he’s one of my favorite actors and, I think, one of the best out there at the moment, but this doesn’t change the fact that he shouldn’t have been taken into consideration while casting. And I’m pretty sure that they immediately went for him, because he’s a well-known actor and would have brought people otherwise disinterested in the movie to the theatres.

In the 60s they didn’t go all the way through with an Indian actor and settled for a Mexican, but at least they tried; now, in 2013, when they would have had no problem finding a suitable candidate for the role, they chose a British actor instead. It’s disheartening.

Also, he doesn’t really stand a chance against the original Khan, who was such an iconic character. He was driven by the strongest sense of revenge, a feeling grown through years of suffering on a barren planet, while his crewmates, friends and wife kept dying, one by one before his eyes. He’s vengeful and impulsive, but oh so clever. He was an equal match to Kirk’s intellect. His downfall was, essentially, his being 300 years old. As Spock points out, he’s a man of the 20th century: his mind works in two dimensions. It’s this tactical disadvantage that ultimately leads him to his fate, it’s a shortcoming he couldn’t have control over.

Abrams’s Khan doesn’t have the same motives for his actions. Yes, he wants his crew back, but was it really necessary to kill all those people? Surely, as smart as he was, he would have found a better way to have his family returned safely to him than blowing up half of London, firing on a room full of innocent people and destroying a starship with all of his crew aboard.

They didn’t even go in depths about the eugenics war, which was such a big deal in TOS, and that’s a shame. Gene thought it as a mirror to WWII and Nazism obviously, but also to the Cold War which threatened to destroy the already frail peace world knew in the 60s and to USA’s imperialism, that is something to spare a thought for even nowadays.

Into Darkness is also full of quotes from The Wrath Of Khan, but I’m not so sure I like that. Let me explain: in TWOK they were functional to the storytelling. Here are just taken out of context, they have no meaning. The infamous  _the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few_  was meant to foreshadow Spock’s ultimate sacrifice, which in his perspective was only logical. In order to save the ship a life had to be lost and since he was the only one who could enter the compartment and restore the reactor that life must be his own.

Moreover, it’s in this movie that we’re introduced to the Kobayashi Maru that has been used as a plot device in 2009 ST. The difference between Abrams’s test and the original is that Kirk received a commendation for original thinking when he cheated, not a reprimand, because it’s true: you only lose when you give up. And Jim proved he didn’t believe in the no-win scenario more than once in TOS: The Corbomite Maneuver comes to mind (and obviously The Search for Spock, but that comes later). In the end though Kirk learns something from it: you can’t really cheat death, not when the victims are the people dearest to you. It’s a bit of a tragedy really, because Kirk won all the battles, but in the end lost the war. He defeated Khan, but  _at what cost? Your ship…Your son…_  jk, sorry! That wasn’t a nice reminder, but the point still stands. Even in TSFS something has to give. Spock’s alive again, but his rescue comes with a price.

Into Darkness doesn’t have the same lesson, because Jim loses his life, not his best friend’s; it’s a fate he chooses for himself, it’s not the loss of someone he cares about derived from a miscalculation, if not a mistake, on his part. That’s a big difference. In TWOK Kirk is the hero who loses his friend (or love of his life, depending on how you read it), in STID he’s the hero who loses his life… so what? That’s what usually happens, it doesn’t have the same emotional weight. Also: we know that he’ll be alive and well in the next 15 minutes or so. A permanent death was never a possibility, while in the original it took a whole movie to get Spock back.

I’d like to finish talking about the female characters: Uhura and Carol. I am quite satisfied with Uhura’s character development. I hated them for ruining her in STXI: she was basically there to look pretty and be Spock’s love interest. I still feel insulted on her behalf remembering that she got on the Enterprise not because she’s the best communication officer in the quadrant if not the galaxy, but because she’s Spock’s girlfriend. That’s sexist as all hell. (along with the treatment of Gaila, for instance. And someone - I’m sorry I don’t remember who; please tell me if you know -  also pointed out that Winona and Amanda are never called by name in that movie: they’re just the “Mothers”). In this movie, however, she gets to prove herself a fine xenolinguistic expert while dealing with the Klingons and is all in all a badass, fighting them and Khan. She’s still an emanation of sorts of Spock, but she’s growing into her own person.

And now Carol: I was terrified, I’m not gonna lie. She’s one of my favorite female characters and I was afraid they’ll turn her into Jim’s love interest and spank material (which happened btw: showing Alice half-naked was pointless and disrespectful). But there’s a but: she was not as terrible as I expected her to be! She was actually well-written: smart and helpful, not so much of a damsel in distress as she managed to play a role in defeating Khan and her own father.

So yeah, I have to say that as female characters’re concerned, I’m quite content. It’s still not perfect and it’s all kinds of sad that a movie released in 2013 doesn’t pass the Bechdel test when its counterpart did nearly 50 years ago, but I noticed an improvement from 2009 and of that I’m happy.

A couple of random thoughts. I loved that Scotty voiced his concerns regarding Starfleet becoming a military organization, while its primary purpose should be exploration. Karl Urban reminds me more of De every day and Sulu kicked ass. Chekov’s a cutie as per usual. All actors did a marvelous job and Leonard’s appearance, though brief as it was, warmed my heart. In conclusion: I liked it well enough for a sci-fi movie, but if their intention was to make a better version of TWOK, well… they failed. This ended my ranting about Star Trek Into Darkness.

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